Issue Position: Strengthening Rural Hospitals

Issue Position

Every Kansan deserves access to quality healthcare, regardless of their zip code. Yet rural communities have suffered disproportionately under the Brownback-Colyer Administration's refusal to expand Medicaid. The result has been hospital closures; nursing home closures; and huge uncompensated care burdens that fall on local taxpayers. The Kelly Administration will focus its rural healthcare efforts on:

Strengthening Rural Hospitals by first expanding Medicaid, which is essential to the survival of rural hospitals and the communities they serve. It is also vital to expand the Community Service Tax Credits program to ensure that hospitals have the resources they need to purchase high quality medical equipment.

Supporting Recruitment of Medical Providers. Western Kansas has shown that cooperation between communities in the recruitment of medical providers can improve both recruitment and retention rates. The Kelly Administration will help expand this promising model statewide by working with regions facing waves of retiring providers where one hospital or practice can't support a new provider alone, but multiple communities that share that provider can.

Source